


The Triumph of Asgard

by reserve



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Feelings, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor has it Bad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-08 02:10:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12854487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/pseuds/reserve
Summary: Loki writes another play.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my bullshit. Thank you to everyone who listened to me whine about this fic; you know who you are.

For a long time, longer than many mortal lives combined, and longer still than the sovereignty of most realms, Loki had felt an unnamable ache in his chest. It was caught beneath his rib cage and beating itself with varied vigor against his bones: an angry avian thing he had no control over. One of his father’s beloved ravens, trapped within him, boring him out from fragile flesh to skin. Occasionally it broke free, sprung forth in a violent rage, and rent him apart.

It was terribly hard, now, to feel quite _so_ dire.

Now, sharing a refugee barge with the few remaining souls who called his adopted planet home, along with a collection of unwanteds, outcasts from the universe’s less swept corners. Now, as the most trusted counsel at the king’s right hand. Now, returned to his brother, and his brother to him.

Now, with so very much to do….

Loki’s console was a mess of books and parchment, covering the ship’s built in computer entirely. He far preferred the feel of a pen or a quill in his hand over a keyboard, and there was more magic in words from one’s own ink. Thor hadn’t been surprised when they’d been assigned this space together and Loki had plucked half of Asgard’s arcane library from thin-air.

In fact, he’d laughed. He’d slapped his thigh and guffawed until he was in tears, and then they both were; just as it had been when they were children. Clinging to each other on the floor of a Hel-forsaken spaceship instead of their childhood chambers, mourning their home instead of a broken toy or horse gone the way of glue.

“Thank the Norns for you, Loki,” Thor had said, touching his face, his hair, and Loki letting him. “You wild, clever thing. You marvel.”

It was no wonder that he let Thor kiss him too. He had always been weak for his brother’s approval. He had always been _especially_ weak for his brother’s affection. And they were so very alone now, no Allfather to stop them. And Loki knew, in a terrible twisted way, that a very good place to be, when you had perhaps been less than good, was with the king.

And so he was. _With_ the king.

“Leave your books,” said the king, coming back to their rooms. Coming home.

Thor was flushed and bright-eyed. He looked at Loki with a predator’s sharp focus and undisguised lust. Loki could feel his gaze, heavy with meaning: _I have you, you’re here, by my side, at last._

It had taken time to make himself accustomed to it, to being the focal point of so much desire, even if he’d always longed for it, missed it though he’d never had it. The furtive touches from their childhood had not deluded him into believing that this was how Thor wanted him. But this _was_ how Thor wanted him: sharp-tongued and teasing as long as he was on his back. The addition of nudity and shared release was the main distinction between their normal sparring and Loki being taken roughly in his brother’s bed.

And the kissing, he could endure the kissing.

“You’re in your cups,” Loki said, barely sparing Thor a glance. He had abandoned his celestial calculations in favor of meditating, but Thor didn’t need to know that. All he saw was Loki at his stuffiest.   

“Very observant,” said Thor, coming to stand behind his chair so he could breathe on him. He cupped the back of Loki’s head and gently swept his hair to the side to reveal his neck. Loki shivered at his touch, the feel of his breath, his hot proximity.  

“Stop panting on me.”

“Is this better?” Thor stooped to taste his skin, his lips brushing against his ear, his throat. Sliding back up so that he could mouth at Loki’s earlobe.

“No.”

“Or this?” One of Thor’s hands wove its way down his torso to slip beneath the gathered waist of his sleep pants. He was half-hard, as he suspected Thor was too, and he was not immune to Thor’s touch, nor the continued exploration of his neck. Thor wrapped a hand around his cock and willed it to fill out.

Loki couldn’t stop the sigh that left his lips, just as he couldn’t stop his head from loling back against Thor’s firm chest to display even more of his throat.  

“ _That’s_ better,” Thor said. He grinned against Loki’s skin. “Show me how much you’ve missed me.”

“Ugh.” He _was_ immune to that kind of talk. “You’ve been gone since— _ah_ —noon. I hardly noticed your absence.”

“Unconvincing. Put that silvertongue to use, brother. Tell me I never crossed your mind.”

“Not once.”

“I don’t believe you,” Thor’s voice was so low it vibrated. “Some parts of you clearly missed me.” He was always so terribly smug; it was sheer madness that Loki let him get so close, even with the way things were.

“Thor,” he said, a plea and a warning. Thor’s hand was making short work of pushing him to the edge, his thick fingers gripping just so, his touch: infuriatingly expert.

“Stop toiling and let me have you. Let me show you how much _you_ were missed.”

Gooseflesh broke out over Loki’s skin. Everything Thor whispered to him was savagely kind, seeped in the pretense that they were only lovers when they both knew there was far more between them than bedsharing or pleasure.

“ _Please_ ,” Thor went on. “I would—”

“Enough talking,” Loki snapped, too lust-hazed to be truly vicious. He felt wholly declawed in this current version of himself; it was astoundingly annoying. And yet, he let Thor lift him into his arms as though he weighed little more then a child. He let Thor lay him out and be sweet to him, replace his hand with his mouth and drag Loki to orgasm as though it were a prize to be won. He clung to Thor and Thor to him, and he welcomed Thor into his body, the ritual homecoming they now repeated each night, and some afternoons, and often in the morning.

Loki peaked nearly thrice, Thor following neatly after, before it became just a little bit tedious. And he said as much, for they had said far worse to each other.

"You have been fucking me—for _thirty_ minutes.”

“You love it,” Thor growled. He had sobered significantly and was still rutting languidly into Loki, pushing his spend deeper. “We’re making up for lost time. You’re as insatiable as I am.”

“That’s not.” Loki gripped Thor’s shoulder as though to stay him. He clenched down on his cock to get his attention. “I am _not_ your stay-at-home sorcerer. I have things to do. This room is also my workspace. It isn’t just open season—"

“Loki?” Thor stopped— _stopped_ , huzzah!—sucking at his neck long enough to make eye contact. “Shut up.”

"Thor. Brother, dearest, what is it you think I do all day? Lay about and wait for you?"

He felt Thor’s chuckle more than heard it. "Your turn as king would have me believe it."

"See a play _one_ time..." Loki groused.   

Thor hushed him. He rubbed their noses together—Vanir kisses, as their mother had called them. He kissed Loki’s exaggerated frown. “Take pity on your king. A few more moments of me between your thighs won’t kill you.”

Loki could pretend to take offense, to feign anger; he could feel the impulse to do so as naturally as he could feel his _seiðr_ . He could _hurt_ Thor, push him away and berate him for his presumption to name himself Loki’s king…. And there was a time not long ago when he would have. When he would have been genuinely angry, wreathed in seething rage to be spoken to so. And now, this too, was different, and the passion Thor stoked in him with words and body was borne solely of lust and complicated affection. Time and loss. An orphan’s bond of shared remorse.

“How nobly you suffer for my favor,” Loki said, wrapping his legs around Thor’s back. “Get on with it.”

Thor grinned: thrilled and stupid, then flipped him onto his stomach. His calloused hands spread Loki apart and he proceeded to clean away the evidence of their evening with his mouth, his beard chafing at the tender skin he found nestled between Loki’s thighs.

Loki couldn’t find it in his wretched heart to complain.

“You should know,” Thor said, after, and pleased with himself, “that it’s the middle of ship’s night. And as such, it’s perfectly reasonable to come home and insist on having my way with you.”

“And have it you did,” Loki said from the table. He had draped his robe over his shoulders and gone half-dressed back to his books just as Thor had found him upon his demanding space-ale lightened return to their suite.

Thor hummed.

“How goes the business of governance?” Loki asked, keeping his tone light.

They has to taken to chatting like this when alone; it was easier for Thor to accept his guidance if there wasn’t an audience, and while it irked Loki slightly to have his counsel relegated to their private moments, he could soothe himself with the very real knowledge that he was indeed the power behind the throne. He offered up wisdom behind closed doors just as Thor’s—just as _their_ mother had. He couldn’t bring himself to disparage Frigga’s memory by minimizing the role she’d played in Odin’s life as queen and consort. She was regent in his absence; his equal, a sorceress and a shield maiden in her own right. Loki was, he had to accept, as molded in her image as Thor was in Odin’s. It had always been so; and he wondered if Thor even realized how easily they’d come to emulate the give and take of their parents’ own relationship.

“About as well as you might expect and as well as you’ve already observed. The distance between where we are and our destination weighs heavily on the people. I know you work daily—”

“Until you interrupt me with your needs—”

“Yes, yes, Loki. I know: I’m a brute. But—you work daily to decipher a quicker path for us, and that heartens me, yet I cannot share your sensitive work with our people and it’s—” Thor sighed. “Secrets have never been my strong suit, I don’t have your talent for subterfuge”

“Don’t think of it as subterfuge,” Loki said, thoughtful. “Think of it...as a matter of Asgardian security. Safe passage is what we need most right now. And you’re well acquainted with keeping the things I do secret. You’ve had near a millennium of practice.”

That made Thor smile. “You always know how to frame things to put my mind at ease—when you aren't making me crazy.”

Loki let his robe slip off his shoulder slightly, a calculated play. “Are you saying I don’t always make you crazy?” He pouted, also calculated. “Have you tired of me already?”

“How could I?” Thor was growing hard just looking at him. Somehow Loki had never considered how keeping his brother in lust-driven thrall would make him feel, and it made him feel powerful.

“Tell me, _brother_.” Loki dipped his head and smiled just a little meanly. He was no better than an asp; his own vulnerability made him strike out. “If I had no magic, no skill with numbers.” He stood, letting the robe fall away entirely. “Would you have use for me as anything other than your courtesan? Other than a willing body to soothe away the pains of the day? A balm for the heady hardship of ruling? What would have become of me, brother, if you didn’t hunger for me so?”

“Don’t be so cruel,” Thor said, sitting up and reaching for him with both of his huge hands. “To yourself.”

Loki scowled but inserted himself between Thor’s arms regardless. Thor’s palms landed on his ass, pulling him closer so that his brother could nuzzle at his bare stomach and press kisses to his hipbones. Loki threaded his fingers through Thor’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, compulsively affectionate. He was ruined. “You keep me to the shadows,” he said, hearing scorn in his voice. “Hidden away.”

“No, Loki. You keep yourself there. I would have you by me in the light or seek you in darkness. However you’ll have me.”

“ _Sentiment_ ,” Loki spat, leaning into Thor’s touch, clutching at his shoulders. He climbed into Thor’s lap, set himself down so that he could feel Thor’s hard cock at his cleft and rub against it. Oh, _Thor_ —dear, stupid Thor—who somehow managed to maintain his ardour through it all. Loki supposed he had a lot of practice. He pushed Thor down onto his back. “Asgard has a fool for a king.”

“She does,” Thor agreed. “And you have a fool for a brother, and he loves you.” He ran his hands through Loki’s hair, lifted his head to catch his mouth in a kiss that became filthy rather quickly.

This was a distraction, Loki knew that. Thor meant each word he said, even though he was an idiot to do so. He wanted to keep Loki close, have his counsel and his sharp mind at hand. Thor called him predictable, but that was only because Thor’s own feelings remained unchanged from when he was about to be crowned years ago. He still wanted his brother as his right hand, he still loved Loki as though Loki had never wronged him, he still had an eddy of mistrust in his heart that would not be eroded. The difference, now, was that Loki was willing to file down his own sharp edges, just enough to keep Thor’s skin intact, and let himself have this.

They were alone, they were the last of all things. Whether in darkness or light, the hideous truth was that Loki loved Thor too.

It was all too easy to fall back into another bout of fucking. Thor pressing in deep, groaning at the slick and release that Loki hadn’t thought to magic away or rinse clean. And Thor was right: they _were_ insatiable. Stressed and starving for each other. When it was over, he put his head on Thor’s sweaty chest and curled in close to him. He drew patterns on Thor’s skin with jagged, ink-stained nails and listened to Thor’s sated breath. He was speaking before he thought not to.

“What _would_ you have me do? If you can’t tell the people that I am _trying_ to spirit them to a new home with haste. How can I,” the word tasted foul before he even said it, “ _contribute?_ ”

There came no answer, for Thor had already fallen alseep. And Loki, stewing but too tired to badger him for it, soon followed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to yeats, ark, and eralkfang for the encouragement and readings.

The days on the ark ship were long.

Loki was no stranger to whiling away the hours, had done so when he was imprisoned, and had indeed spent a fair amount of time wallowing in leisure as Odin, but he wasn’t suited to space. In fact, he didn’t particularly _like_ space. Maybe it was prejudice after being kicked out of the Bifrost not once but _twice_. Maybe it was the niggling awareness that there were far worse things than him out there in the cosmos. He had never liked feeling powerless, and steadily churning through stardust towards Midgard was having an effect on him. He required something like guidance although it pained him to admit it. And if Thor was too busy fucking him and falling asleep after to give counsel of his own, then Loki would have to seek it elsewhere.

In the morning, after a shower, fending off Thor, and dressing, he sought out Heimdall.

The old guard was not surprised to see him.

“Your highness,” said Heimdall, managing to make it sound both entirely disrespectful and deferential at once. He inclined his head to Loki. He was sitting in one of the ship’s larger common spaces, surrounded by Asgardian children of all ages, most of whom seemed to be clamouring for a story. Heimdall plucked a toddler off his knee to stand.

“Might we speak privately?” Loki asked, feeling about as young as the children around them.

“As you wish.”

They were turning to go when something tugged on Loki’s surcoat. Then tugged again. He looked down to find a very bold little girl with her fist clenched in his hem.

“Prince Loki,” she said, letting go to do a proper curtsy. “Would you do one of your tricks for us? It’s _awfully_ dull here.”

He found himself smiling before he could admonish a child for trivializing the nature of his gifts. It was difficult to resist an admission of boredom. He felt it on a soul-deep level with most things. “What sort of trick?” He asked, lowering himself to better see his assailant.

“Oh! Anything,” said the girl. The other children, he saw, had taken notice of him too, and they all stared with wide unsure eyes. “Any magic.”

“Give me your hand,” Loki said. She placed her chubby fist in his and he turned her hand palm up. “Now close your eyes and wish for something. Think very hard of it.”

Children were easy to read. They didn’t hide away their thoughts or build walls around them. Her hand in his was enough for Loki to sense her thoughts, and producing her wish was short work. She opened her eyes when the other children gasped, for there in her hand was a small, glowing facsimile of a horse, mane whipping proudly in magical wind. The horse gave a faint whinny and stamped its hooves before dissolving into a harmless shower of green and blue sparks.

Everyone clapped.

“More!” cried an overlarge boy in leather bracers who reminded him of Thor. “Please?” All the other children nodded, emboldened, and a brief chorus of pleas and “please your highness” rang out.

Who was he to deny an adoring public?

Thor had once told him that he’d know Loki was truly dead when hearing his own name in exultation didn’t rouse him. Now he faced a collection of small, expectant faces, not a suspicious expression among them. All of his magic was fleeting. He couldn’t call forth weapons from thin air like his sister, nor could he summon storms, but he could change his shape and the shapes of those around him, he could craft runes to protect the home and hearth, he could create beautiful illusions drawn from what the heart most longed for, and he could hurt and he could maim and he could disappear….

Loki cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “since you all asked so very nicely.”

It was hard to feel as rudderless as he had the night before in the face of such unbridled glee, and Loki stretched his seiðr for an enraptured crowd.

Each cry for more was a hook in his heart, holding him fast, keeping him.

He hadn’t thought overmuch about all the small Asgardians he’d helped board the ark ship, but looking at them now, he felt— _sorry_ for them. His childhood had been imperfect, but he was also a prince with all the benefits that station afforded. He couldn’t pretend to know the life of an ordinary Aesir child, but he knew _Asgard_ : its sparkling waters and clear skies, the snowcapped mountains. The royal city’s golden, glittering parapets and gentle birdsong. Their life hadn’t been entirely cloistered: he had run through the outdoor markets with Thor at his side, shouting for sweet rolls or cold, milky tea just as any other child might. They’d made mischief and merriment and he suspected the joy would have continued forever more if he hadn’t been quite so eager to test the boundaries of his magic, or quite so terrified of how his brother made him feel. It seemed fruitless now, all of the time he spent feeling sick to his stomach over Thor. Idiotic, wonderful Thor who insisted on being in love with him.

If only he’d known….exept no, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He was exactly himself, at least Thor knew that now and seemed to have accepted it.

How entirely loss managed to reframe things. Would he trade the years between his past and the present if it meant Asgard yet lived but his brother was lost to him? He thought not, but all the same, if only these children could have grown up in the Asgard that raised him. They wouldn’t know their world or their stories as he had. So many feast days and festivals lost to Surtur’s fury and Hela’s ire. So many intangible things gone as well. It couldn’t be helped.

_He_ couldn’t help.

But: to the delight of another little girl, he created a collection of glimmering flowers and sent them floating above everyone’s heads, fluttering their petals like wings and spinning in reds and purples. With broad strokes of his palm he sketched out the palace with only air as his canvas and soon it was formed enough to become a miniscule, translucent apparition of his former home. His heart clenched. There were _oohs_ and _ahhs_ , and for a short time Loki lost himself to the pleasure of spectacle.

He forgot Heimdall was there at all until the guardian cleared his throat and said, “everyone thank his highness.” And they all did, one by one, with bows and curtsies, and some with wet eyes. Loki nodded at each in turn, strangely touched.

“You desired to speak with me?” Heimdall said, bringing him back to solid ground.

“Ah, yes. Walk with me.”

The ark ship wasn’t excessive in size, and they walked in silence for several minutes until Loki felt they were well enough away from where most of the passengers spent their days.

“You know,” said Heimdall, once they’d stopped and Loki found himself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. “You and your brother have both grown bigger hearts. For your people, and—“

Loki mustered up a forbidding look but Heimdall was unmoved.

“For each other.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say—“

“I have known both of you your whole lives. Looked after you.”

Loki snorted inelegantly.

“I only want to say, that your mother would be proud. The Allfather said as much, but I thought you may need to hear it from another mouth.”

“Even with—“ Loki began, momentarily unguarded and thinking of Thor’s hands on him mere hours ago.

“She only ever wanted your happiness,” Heimdall said. “Yours and your brother’s.”

“That’s _terribly_ diplomatic.”

“Did you have something specific you wanted to discuss?” Heimdall deftly changed the subject, the bastard.

“Right. As you know, the work I am doing for my brother and our people is secret in nature.” Loki coughed lightly. “And as such, it might be unsurprising to hear that this is less then...satisfying for me. I was hoping you might have some suggestions, as it were, for what I might do. In addition to it.”

“If I may—“ Heimdall looked to him for permission. It was strange, to be back in his good graces, at least for now. Stranger still that Heimdall had been willing to welcome him back at all. He imagined some of it was Thor’s doing and astonishingly it didn’t rankle him. Heimdall continued: “it is possible his highness underestimates the power in what he has just done, for those children. Or the power in simply appearing at the king’s side. There is greater value in continuity than meets the eye.”

“I suspected you might take this tact.”

“Asgard has often has a sorcerer to the left of the throne. Your mother. Your grandmother, who was much like you, if you’ll remember.”

“You mean sorceresses. Women.” That did rankle. As did the mention of his Jötunn blood.

“Be that as it may—“

“Enough,” Loki said, scowling and quite finished. He added a hasty thank you and then turned and walked firmly away, not looking back. Trust Heimdall to dredge up exactly what he feared: that he was somehow doomed to rule with Thor, as though Odin had intended all along for him to be a gift to his boorish son. A war bride. Some kind of simpering, exotic brat capable of playing the role of childhood playmate and then bitch when the time came.

He spent the remainder of the day in a haze, unable to focus when he resumed work on his calculations. His mind returned to the children again and again, to their diasporic future. An Aesir life was a long one; how could one do so much living without knowing the past? He was self-aware enough to know that altruism alone didn’t move him. It never had. The situation reeked of opportunity. Loki had spent much of his childhood retreating into books and history as though he knew somehow deep inside that he was a fraud, a stranger among would-be foes, and thus he had shore up his defenses with as much knowledge of his adopted heritage as possible. He could remember as much of Asgard’s past as any historian. His storytelling was lauded.

And now he had the chance to shape history just as he pleased. Now that, _that_ was valuable.

He would simply have to choose where to start. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Keihi](http://keihi.tumblr.com/) told me I was morally obligated to post today because it's Thursday (har-har). This chapter is dedicated to [Trill](http://trillgutterbug.tumblr.com/), who astounded me this week with kinder words than one can ever hope for.

They were sitting in the ship’s mess hall, having just finished dinner, and the room had the same festive feel that Loki remembered from the great palace feasts of their childhood. He had never felt so frequently nostalgic in the course of a single day, not even in his gilded prison. There was probably an inane poeticism at work; the end of all things returning him to his beginning. To complete the scene, some industrious peas— _person_ had even pulled out a guitar and was accompanying several singers in a ribald balled Loki knew by heart. It had always made him squirm when when he was little, the line about keys and locks and willing holes if he remembered correctly. And he was, to his dismay, humming along and keeping time with one tapping foot.  

“What’s gotten into you?” Thor asked. He pinched Loki’s side: affectionate, annoying.

“Hmmm?”

“It almost seems like you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Maybe I am,” Loki replied archly.

“You have an almost peaceful look.” Thor eyed him speculatively and not without a little mistrust. “You wear it well.”

“Well, _you_ have your typical constipated look, like someone has just told a joke you don’t get.”

“Very funny.” Thor fake laughed. “I mean it, though. Are you well?”

“You just said I looked peaceful.”

“Which is to say, if I can’t see the gears turning behind those enchanting emerald eyes I have to assume you’re plotting something.”  

“Flatterer,” Loki scoffed. “Maybe I do feel— _peaceful_ as you say. Likely because you haven’t ruined my evening yet.” He paused, yet caught in Thor’s considering gaze and his compliment. Where had all of those compliments been so many years ago? Had he been saving them up? Afraid to set them free? “I, ah, I spoke with Heimdall today,” he added, an afterthought.

“He mentioned your little performance.” Thor’s remaining eye twinkled at him.  

Loki picked at nothing on his tunic as an excuse to look away.

“Who knew you could be so kind?” Thor said, voice dropping very low. Beneath the table he put his hand on Loki’s knee, big and warm, and covering the whole of it. “What’s happened to the cold, calculating Loki I know? Where’s that greedy, sharp-tongued boy?”

“Greedy?” Loki pulled a practiced “who, me?” face.

“Oh, _tremendously_ so. With everything he desires. Even things willingly given.” Thor’s hand gave a brief, strong squeeze. His fingers curling around Loki’s thigh.

“Your majesty,” Loki said, smirking, quite composed. “You’re practically drooling. It’s unseemly.”

“Like a hound for his supper, Loki.”

“Mmmm.” He felt himself flush. Maybe it was the raunchy lyrics, but there was something in the way Thor said his name that always moved him, even before he had a name for how he felt. He caught himself leaning in, as though he fully intended to offer up his mouth for a kiss in full view of all that remained of Asgard, the Sakaarian refugees, and the Norns themselves. What could be the harm? Odin’s little play had made certain that everyone knew he was adopted. No ulterior motive whatsoever. Perhaps just a desire to be seen and loved regardless. And how they seemed to love him; weeping openly at his death on stage. He’d gotten a taste for it. His palate had been further expanded recently as well. He could get used to this: Thor’s attention solely for him, children fawning over him, a comfortable life at the high table when he was simply himself, neither a false son nor a false king, but a newly wrought thing entirely. What was it his brother had said about growth and change….

“I would hate to be predictable,” Loki purred. He could feel Thor’s breath on his lips. Just a little bit closer and he would be able to taste Thor as well. The hand on his knee slid up his thigh. “Does it please you, brother? Do I whet your appetite?”

Thor swallowed.

“Do you _want_ me? Here and now? On this very table.” Loki’s come hither smile grew pointed. “How very depraved you are, willing to defile me before all your fellows. Before your _kingdom_.”

“You tempt me.”

“Maybe I was born to do so.” Loki licked his lips. His put his hand over Thor’s and pushed it higher still, dug his nails into the tendons he found there. “What good is a hound without a _bitch_? Hmmm?” He wanted Thor to know how aroused he was. That even with an audience he was still livid for it, would let Thor take him in the public square like the peace offering he might have been in another life, or like they were breeding horses at auction, or like he was just Thor’s simple Jötunn _whore_.

He dug his nails in hard enough to draw blood and Thor gasped.

“Your majesty!”

“Duty calls,” Loki said softly, pulling away immediately to hide his heated cheeks behind his wine glass. He watched Thor try to compose himself and fail miserably. He was pleased.

Valkyrie was giving them both overly appraising looks but that didn’t stop her from raising her ale in a toast by way of greeting. “Sorry to interrupt, sires.” This said with a leer that was wholly unbecoming on her. “But I’ve promised Astrid here a story about the princes and I thought the king might want to tell one himself.”

“Ha!” Thor’s laugh boomed out joyously, an obvious cover. “Come and sit. Both of you.”

Valkyrie sat down with Astrid by her side, a young woman: red haired, very fair, and blushing copiously. Loki smiled at her without teeth, and noted the way Valkyrie draped her arm across the back of Astrid’s chair, casual but still possessive. _Ah_ , and wasn’t that interesting. He filed it away for later use. 

“Astrid’s a healer,” Valkyrie said by way of introduction. “Healed me up after the inferno.”

“A noble profession,” Loki said. He had a fair share of healing magic himself, but he hadn’t exactly made a habit of it over the years.

“Indeed,” Thor said, smiling between them, beatific and fully recovered. “What kind of tale would you like to hear, Lady Astrid?”

“Something from your childhood?” Astrid ventured. “I studied, uh, with your royal mother, your majesty. She always wove wonderful tales for us during the quieter moments.”

“Then you’ll want a story from my brother here.” Thor gave Loki an indulgent look and slapped his back firmly. “He truly has mother’s gifts.”

“No, no. I quite think the king should regale us with a story. Don’t you think so?” Loki said, mostly to Valkyrie. He winked.

“Yes, I think so.” Valkyrie winked back.

“Well,” Thor said. “If you insist. Here’s a marvelous story about snakes.”

Serves me right, Loki thought, and settled in to listen all the same. It was, he realized, the little things like this that people would never know about them, and he wasn’t sure he wanted them to, at least not at large, but he did feel, much as he had when he wrote his last play, that he was clearly best suited to weave his own story, just like their mother with her tapestries.

“And then he stabbed me!” Thor said, jabbing at the air. “And that was but the first of many times.”

“It was just a flesh wound.” Loki shook his head. “And then I healed it.’

“He claimed it was only so he could test his healing abilities, but I knew better.”

“You’re a healer too?” Astrid asked, wonderingly. “I hadn’t known, your highness.”

“Loki is quite the mystery,” Thor said. He put his arm over Loki’s shoulders. “He’s full of secrets.”

“That’s not all he’s full of,” Valkyrie added.

“I am a man of many talents,” Loki agreed, ignoring her and looking directly at Thor. “Thor, you should tell Astrid about your Midgardian friends. Surely there’s an interesting story or two there?”

Thor gave him a bit of the stink eye, but he favored Astrid with a half-smile. “Have you ever heard of shawarma, Lady Astrid?”

The evening continued on much the same, and it felt for a time like he and Thor were putting on a show: princes and brothers, and nearly something more if you knew how too look, which Valkyrie did. And as the ale and wine flowed, for the Grandmaster had an ample collection of libations already on board, Thor’s hand found its way back to his thigh, and affection for Loki was written in his every gesture, every gentle barb: so warm and soft that it may as well have been a woven blanket all its own, swaddling him, keeping him close.

Whatever history he chose to write, he knew it would be theirs to start.  

—

“I saw you smile,” Thor said, also smiling. “When I told the snake story.”

“It’s a cherished childhood memory of mine.”

“You were always keen on stabbing.” Thor kept smiling. He was sitting opposite Loki on the bed, his hand around Loki’s ankle like a gentle manacle. “You drove me to distraction tonight, Loki.”

Loki tilted his head to the side and arranged his face into a sultry expression. He noted the way Thor’s breath suddenly caught, the way the air around them shifted as though by magic, and drew his hand up his naked thigh in a languorous drag, shifting his knees apart, while Thor watched. He tilted his hips and slipped his hand down to where his body was still slightly open and wet from their previous post-feast activities, and probed at himself, tentative, before pushing two fingers into his hole without ceremony. Thor looked stricken.

“I don’t have _half_ the affinity for stabbing—” Loki thrust his fingers deeper and gasped as he spread them apart. “That you do of late.”

“No,” Thor said, taking the hint and getting up on his knees to move closer. He reached out and gave no warning before his index finger joined Loki’s two, shoving into him, stretching him around their combined girth. “But Loki, does it truly count as stabbing if you welcome the knife so willingly?”

“I thought—” He sounded strained to his own ears. “I thought I had all but healed. But you.” And now he sounded accusatory even as Thor took him apart in tandem with his own fingers. “You’ve carved out a place in me, _brother_ ; right along the same old scar. You found your way back in.”

“You never _let_ me in.” Thor crawled over him, kept touching him slow and deep, and leaned in close, his hand trapped between Loki’s thighs.

“You cut a path anyway.”

Thor added a second finger and Loki found himself holding his hand steady while his brother plundered him, grazing against his prostate and filling him, their knuckles touching in a strange caress. He threw his head back against the pillows and moaned, unable to keep the sound inside, or the spite on his tongue.

“ _Gods_ , not like this, but you were inside me all the same. Whether I— _ah_ —wanted you or not. Whether I cared for you or not. Whether I hated you or loved you or was mournfully envious of you, or—”

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor said, and kissed him, tonguing away his old pain directly from his mouth.  

“Fuck me.” Loki begged, breathless when the kiss ended. “I need you to fuck me.” He pulled his hand free and tugged at Thor’s wrist. He was burning up and he needed—he needed more than Thor’s fingers or his words, or his soft, pitying looks. His stupid stories from simpler times, his horrible love. “Now! Now, damnit.”

Thor nodded vigorously. Loki gripped at his waist, dug his nails into Thor’s skin, and keened when Thor finally entered him, hot and thick and breaking him apart as much as he held him together.

“You’re mad,” Thor said, his eyebrows rising up. He touched Loki’s cheek as he fucked him; hard and then harder still when Loki kicked at his back and begged for more. “You never thought, not once, that I might have felt the same as you. That maybe you were inside me too.”

“That’s not possible,” Loki said, barely audible.

“It was and always will be. For once in your life cast doubt aside and take what I’m offering you.”

“The fuck of a lifetime?” The jibe came unbidden.

“ _No_ , Loki—what the Hel is wrong with you?”

“Everything.” He felt hysterical. “All things. Don’t stop—“

“I love you,” said Thor at the same moment that Loki cried: “I hate you,” his legs squeezing tightly around Thor, and forcing himself down hard on Thor’s cock, spearing himself as best he could.

“You don’t.” Thor kissed him. “You never have.”

It was with great regret that Loki began to cry: for Asgard, for their past, and for their future. And greater regret still that he sought comfort in Thor’s arms. Having Thor inside him in this tangible, wonderful, maddening way soothed him and it made him furious. He was as tumultuous in his affection as he was in all things; he was a clear day given to sudden storms, and how ironic that his kingly brother, the very god of thunder, was so frequently the cause of his turmoil.

Thor brought him off as he wept; tender, so very tender, and they spilled together, Loki clenching down on his brother through his own release. When he was no longer gasping, Thor kissed away his tears and held him close, murmured to him about nothing at all until Loki stopped shaking with something very similar to grief that called itself love.

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback is much appreciated. You can follow me on tumblr if you’d like!


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